It’s so sad and unbelievably to read this on the BBC
The World Health Organization (WHO) has criticised the rollout of coronavirus vaccines in Europe as being "unacceptably slow".
It also says the situation in the region is more worrying than it has been for several months.
Vaccination campaigns in much of Europe have been hit by delays and the number of infections is rising.
Until Europe can get there act together, I think we can forget travel there.
I think the countries of the EU made a mistake letting the EU handle the vaccine issue. And Canada is a mystery. Their vaccine rate is worse than Brazil. Canada has a similar population to California, and they have vaccinated something like 1.8% of their population. The Canadian snowbirds are flying to Florida to get vaccinated. California has about 16 percent fully vaccinated and more than thirty percent with at least one shot. I’ve read that Gibraltar has 100% vaccinated ... a small place ... but I like Gibraltar. hmm. I wonder if they did the monkeys?
Going back north, if they fly into Canada they have to quarantine for three days in specified hotels at a significant cost. If you drive in, no quarantine. So they fly to Buffalo, NY, and hire a driver to take them across the border.
The travel explosion: American Airlines domestc bookings on a seven day rolling average are 90% of the 2019 levels, and load factors are at 80%. They expect to reactivate most of their fleet during the second quarter. Their biggest problem may be to retrain all those pilots that were furloughed. They may have robbed Peter to pay Paul.
(I’ve been retired for a long time, but I still get ‘company’ communications.)
By the way, the American Airlines Flight Academy is an amazing place. It is the size of a good size college campus, and they have a large number of simulators of different types. If you have never seen one, they look a lot like the ‘moon walkers’ from Star Wars.
I've flown between the skyscrapers in Seattle, crashed into the side of Mount Rainier and flown through the hangar bay of an aircraft carrier- simulators are fun
So now I have had my two shots, (the second one gave me about six hours of extreme fatigue and then I was Ok) I am beginners to have a difference more positive outlook that I am guessing those of you who got early vacation know what I am talking about.
My pessimism.that forum members say I had in 2020 for travel was for me just being realistic and We continued to realize international travel was unlikely in 2021, so we did not book any more international tours but we were stuck with those that were already scheduled a long time ago. We have one more tour withTauck this year that they have not cancelled. If it is not cancelled we will go. We certainly don’t want to push it into 2022 if it is not necessary, but it does cause anxiety not knowing and difficulty scheduling to do the same tour again because there are other tours we now have booked in 2022 that would prevent us doing them.
These past couple of weeks have instead been busy with planning US trips and we have just scheduled another, a long road trip. We have’s taken one of those for a long time. We’ve been to this area before, but not for about twenty years. This time we will stay in what some people would describe as a Tauck standard hotel with a lovely indoor pool and other great facilities that we will have time to enjoy. We can get up when we want and tour the sites at leisure and come back to the hotel to get our money’s worth of the facilities which there is never time to enjoy when we stay at an hotel like this with Tauck. We can dress how we like without having to wonder what other members of a tour like Tauck think and we can take some nice outfits that we are not afraid we might never see again if bags get lost on a plane, or might get crinkled in a bag. We don’t have to worry about weight and we can actually unpack which we don’t on a Tauck tour. I’m just hoping I can remember what to take and pack after such a long time being at home.
So, here I am, very positive. I can cancel just before the trip of necessary instead of waiting for someone else to decide, no plane flight plans to change. And my money is in my control, not Tauck’s. We will travel with.Tauck again when they decide it’s time to go. Right now, this is refreshing and exciting!
AlanS -
I've flown between the skyscrapers in Seattle, crashed into the side of Mount Rainier and flown
through the hangar bay of an aircraft carrier- simulators are fun
Based on your hangar bay simulator training, were you asked to be the stunt pilot on the Roger Moore James Bond movie Octopussy when he flew his Acrostar “Bede” Jet plane through a hangar?
That was a real stunt, no CGI! I, on the other hand, never made it all the way through the hangar bay in the simulator- it was "crash and reset" Corkie Fornoff , the guy that actually flew that stunt for the movie is quite a pilot and interesting fellow. They did several takes when shooting the movie. Here is link to a great little article about the stunt and Corkie.
The BD-5 was an interesting airplane, especially the BD-5J jet variant. The turbojet engine didn't respond well to throttle commands at low RPM and took forever to spin up and generate serious thrust from idle. In order to keep the engine running at a decent RPM without generating too much thrust (and speed) when landing, they had to add exhaust diverters similar to a thrust reverser and use them while the plane was in the air so it would slow enough to land. Big commercial jets use thrust reversers after touchdown to slow down on the runway. When I was stationed at NAS Whidbey Island, they raffled off a BD-5 kit one year. An old lady won it but sold it to an aviator. I never heard if he finished it. Arguably deservedly so, the BD-5 got a bad rep for crashes. Also, despite aircraft design issues and poor construction, builders spent most of their time building it and not enough time gaining flight experience.
Second shot was this morning. No issues yet. Was originally thinking of biking this afternoon, but just don't feel like it. Legs still a little sore from an epic ski day on Weds. Is laziness a side effect?
24 hours post vaccine. Woke up a few hours ago a little achy, but better now. No fever, rash, etc. Arm was a little sore at injection site after first one, but not second one.
Cathy - Only my second ride of the season. Just warming up
Unfortunately, this past week may have been my last time on skis until Fall. Very warm here today and tomorrow (80) and supposed to hit 50 in the mountains. But winter could return up there. Geeze, if I wanted hot weather like this so soon, I could have lived in Tucson.
Did a ‘little’ research on this. It looks like the CDC did little except agree with the vaccine requirement. They still want a ‘test cruise’, and the path to operating out of US ports remains unclear. I think most of the cruising in the short term is going to remain ‘offshore’.
Good luck with cruise ships. Will any ships leaving port in Florida be subject to the governors executive order banning vaccine passports or private businesses from requiring customers be vaccinated? I predict a protracted legal mess. No way I'd sign up for a cruise this year.
I think DeSantes just shot himself in the foot. He wants cruises to operate out of Florida, but IMHO the only way a cruise can operate in the short term is if everyone is vaccinated. I’ve been on one cruise where we had a major outbreak of illness, and it happened to be a Tauck trip. Between the ‘Gov.’ and the CDC, I think cruising from US ports is temporarily DED. We may book a cruise, but it will be ‘offshore’.
For once Sealord I agree with you. Dumb move on DeSantes part. The other caveat in his executive order (I read it all) talks about not letting vaccine info be given to third party entities though you can personally. However, if other counties require something like the Green Passport the EU is talking about or others, I'd imagine that verification would need to come from official sources not just us telling them "on yeah, trust me I'd never lie about a vaccine". Would you be able to approve release? Stupid legal mess tax payers will fund.
Sorry you only agreed with me once. I’m actually a pretty smart guy. (;-). I actually predicted 911 to the FAA safety people in a meeting at the AA Flight Academy. I told them they needed to defend the cockpit. They said, “Young man, we have not had a hijacking in the United States in ten years, and that proves we are doing it just right.”. I’ve often wondered if that man ever thought about our ‘exchange’ after 911. I flew to LaGuardia about five days after 911, and the Trade Center was still burning. And yes, I went to ground zero. The police gave me a guided tour in a golf cart. It was very limited access, but they admitted any crewmember of United or American.
Probably do agree on more. Not always about being smart. Personal experience and views count too. Being a female military member I spent a career fighting against conservative norms.
On 911, I was on the 4th floor of the Navy Annex - just west of the Pentagon next to Arlington cemetery. Was watching CNN on the admirals tv when I saw a flash of movement by the window. Then a large boom. Thought Andrews AFB had scrambled jets. When our fire alarms went off and we evacuated the building we could see the smoke coming out of the Pentagon. For the next 8 months before retirement I daily faced the reconstruction.
An acquaintance of mine was the Captain of that plane. He was also a Captain in the Naval Reserve ... and one of his Reserve jobs was in the Pentagon. He was Charles “Chic” Burlingame. He is in Arlington. I was scheduled to fly to New York on 911, but I had jury duty.
Chic was a classmate of mine at the Naval Academy. One of the officers killed in the Pentagon, LtCol Gary Smith, was a neighbor, friend, and his daughter was a classmate and good friend of my daughter. I had many meetings in the Pentagon so could have been there but I was at a meeting outside the beltway this time. We broke for coffee and as we watched TV coverage of the burning north tower, we saw the second plane crash into the south tower, and not long afterwards the third plane which I later learned had flown over our house a few minutes earlier, crashed into the Pentagon. My wife remembers hearing a plane flying lower than usual (we lived 14 mi. south of the Pentagon and under the approach to Nat'l Airport) She knew I could be in any one of those places but when I tried to call, the phone system was overwhelmed. I was eventually able to leave a brief "I'm all right" msg- the second time in our marriage I had to make a call like that*. My boss and I tried to call our office to see what we should do, but no one answered- they had all been evacuated from our (mostly "Agency") building in nearby Clarendon. It took me over 2 hours to get home, a trip that would normally take 45 min. That whole thing was too close to home.
*I was scheduled to fly one night and just waiting in the ready room when another one of our squadron aircraft crashed, killing all crewmen. I couldn't explain or provide any details, but she knew what the call meant.
Many of us were close to that fire. I had been based in Boston so I knew some of the Flight 11 crew. Our daughter was living in Greenwich Village, so the first thing we heard was the phone going off at six (California) in the morning, and she said, “Where is Mike?!”. The first reports said it was an American 737 which is what I was flying. We could make no sense of what she was telling us so we said we would call her back. Fat chance. Her cell tower was in the Trade Center. People wondered why the Emergency Broadcast System didn’t go off ... it was in the Trade Center. It is now based in the USS Intrepid Museum.
I had actually flown a 727 ****simulator**** between the two Trade Center towers around 1995. We had finished doing landing exercises at LaGuardia early, so the check airman asked what I would like to do. I said, “I want to fly between those two buildings.”. As I approached going around four hundred knots, it didn’t look like I had enough space, so I popped the nose up, rolled to ninety degrees, and pulled it through on a ‘knife edge’ pass. Made it!
Amazing how small the world can be in the "six degrees of separation" sense.
Yes, the phone systems were a mess that day. Have always been grateful that my husband, who worked up at the Security Station near National Cathedral then, and I had talked briefly after the first plane hit and knew where each was and that we were safe. I did occasionally attend meetings at the Pentagon and knew one person slightly who died.
Also a story of 2 guys in the bathroom when it hit. One was about to step into the corridor and the other realized what was happening and pulled him back just in time.
At the time, I lived in the northern suburbs of Phila and about 10% of people in my area commuted/worked in Manhattan. It was about an hour by train (including driving to the train station). Anyway, we both had long driveways and taking out the garbage was a chore. He thought his wife had taken out the garbage the night before, but when he was leaving for work (in the WTC), he noted that she hadn't. So, he stopped to take it out. Because of that, he missed his train. That's why he's still alive. they never argued about who would take out the garbage again.
Cathy- anyone who flags your sincere, heartfelt, science recommended comment about your concern about being among mask-less people congregating inside deserves the rant of unpleasantries.
Thank you, again, for what you do. I am so sorry that your employer does not follow protocol. I know nothing about the funerary business--having only been a consumer far too many times-- but perhaps there is a national oversight agency who might be able to help you if you choose to file a complaint. Bless you.
Comments
It’s so sad and unbelievably to read this on the BBC
The World Health Organization (WHO) has criticised the rollout of coronavirus vaccines in Europe as being "unacceptably slow".
It also says the situation in the region is more worrying than it has been for several months.
Vaccination campaigns in much of Europe have been hit by delays and the number of infections is rising.
Until Europe can get there act together, I think we can forget travel there.
I think the countries of the EU made a mistake letting the EU handle the vaccine issue. And Canada is a mystery. Their vaccine rate is worse than Brazil. Canada has a similar population to California, and they have vaccinated something like 1.8% of their population. The Canadian snowbirds are flying to Florida to get vaccinated. California has about 16 percent fully vaccinated and more than thirty percent with at least one shot. I’ve read that Gibraltar has 100% vaccinated ... a small place ... but I like Gibraltar. hmm. I wonder if they did the monkeys?
How can Canadians fly or drive to Florida SeaLord, the borders are closed!
Going back north, if they fly into Canada they have to quarantine for three days in specified hotels at a significant cost. If you drive in, no quarantine. So they fly to Buffalo, NY, and hire a driver to take them across the border.
The travel explosion: American Airlines domestc bookings on a seven day rolling average are 90% of the 2019 levels, and load factors are at 80%. They expect to reactivate most of their fleet during the second quarter. Their biggest problem may be to retrain all those pilots that were furloughed. They may have robbed Peter to pay Paul.
(I’ve been retired for a long time, but I still get ‘company’ communications.)
By the way, the American Airlines Flight Academy is an amazing place. It is the size of a good size college campus, and they have a large number of simulators of different types. If you have never seen one, they look a lot like the ‘moon walkers’ from Star Wars.
I've flown between the skyscrapers in Seattle, crashed into the side of Mount Rainier and flown through the hangar bay of an aircraft carrier- simulators are fun
So now I have had my two shots, (the second one gave me about six hours of extreme fatigue and then I was Ok) I am beginners to have a difference more positive outlook that I am guessing those of you who got early vacation know what I am talking about.
My pessimism.that forum members say I had in 2020 for travel was for me just being realistic and We continued to realize international travel was unlikely in 2021, so we did not book any more international tours but we were stuck with those that were already scheduled a long time ago. We have one more tour withTauck this year that they have not cancelled. If it is not cancelled we will go. We certainly don’t want to push it into 2022 if it is not necessary, but it does cause anxiety not knowing and difficulty scheduling to do the same tour again because there are other tours we now have booked in 2022 that would prevent us doing them.
These past couple of weeks have instead been busy with planning US trips and we have just scheduled another, a long road trip. We have’s taken one of those for a long time. We’ve been to this area before, but not for about twenty years. This time we will stay in what some people would describe as a Tauck standard hotel with a lovely indoor pool and other great facilities that we will have time to enjoy. We can get up when we want and tour the sites at leisure and come back to the hotel to get our money’s worth of the facilities which there is never time to enjoy when we stay at an hotel like this with Tauck. We can dress how we like without having to wonder what other members of a tour like Tauck think and we can take some nice outfits that we are not afraid we might never see again if bags get lost on a plane, or might get crinkled in a bag. We don’t have to worry about weight and we can actually unpack which we don’t on a Tauck tour. I’m just hoping I can remember what to take and pack after such a long time being at home.
So, here I am, very positive. I can cancel just before the trip of necessary instead of waiting for someone else to decide, no plane flight plans to change. And my money is in my control, not Tauck’s. We will travel with.Tauck again when they decide it’s time to go. Right now, this is refreshing and exciting!
Based on your hangar bay simulator training, were you asked to be the stunt pilot on the Roger Moore James Bond movie Octopussy when he flew his Acrostar “Bede” Jet plane through a hangar?
That was a real stunt, no CGI! I, on the other hand, never made it all the way through the hangar bay in the simulator- it was "crash and reset"
Corkie Fornoff , the guy that actually flew that stunt for the movie is quite a pilot and interesting fellow. They did several takes when shooting the movie. Here is link to a great little article about the stunt and Corkie.
The BD-5 was an interesting airplane, especially the BD-5J jet variant. The turbojet engine didn't respond well to throttle commands at low RPM and took forever to spin up and generate serious thrust from idle. In order to keep the engine running at a decent RPM without generating too much thrust (and speed) when landing, they had to add exhaust diverters similar to a thrust reverser and use them while the plane was in the air so it would slow enough to land. Big commercial jets use thrust reversers after touchdown to slow down on the runway. When I was stationed at NAS Whidbey Island, they raffled off a BD-5 kit one year. An old lady won it but sold it to an aviator. I never heard if he finished it. Arguably deservedly so, the BD-5 got a bad rep for crashes. Also, despite aircraft design issues and poor construction, builders spent most of their time building it and not enough time gaining flight experience.
Second shot was this morning. No issues yet. Was originally thinking of biking this afternoon, but just don't feel like it. Legs still a little sore from an epic ski day on Weds. Is laziness a side effect?
BKMD - laziness isn’t a side effect, more like a character defect. 😀 Congrats on shot number two.
24 hours post vaccine. Woke up a few hours ago a little achy, but better now. No fever, rash, etc. Arm was a little sore at injection site after first one, but not second one.
48h out and 100% back to normal. Laziness resolved, too. Just back from an 18 mile bike ride.
Cathy - Only my second ride of the season. Just warming up
Unfortunately, this past week may have been my last time on skis until Fall. Very warm here today and tomorrow (80) and supposed to hit 50 in the mountains. But winter could return up there. Geeze, if I wanted hot weather like this so soon, I could have lived in Tucson.
OK, I took the bait.
You aren't Tucson Tough, you're more Denver Dainty. 🧚♀️
In case you couldn't see the emoji above.
Did a ‘little’ research on this. It looks like the CDC did little except agree with the vaccine requirement. They still want a ‘test cruise’, and the path to operating out of US ports remains unclear. I think most of the cruising in the short term is going to remain ‘offshore’.
Good luck with cruise ships. Will any ships leaving port in Florida be subject to the governors executive order banning vaccine passports or private businesses from requiring customers be vaccinated? I predict a protracted legal mess. No way I'd sign up for a cruise this year.
I think DeSantes just shot himself in the foot. He wants cruises to operate out of Florida, but IMHO the only way a cruise can operate in the short term is if everyone is vaccinated. I’ve been on one cruise where we had a major outbreak of illness, and it happened to be a Tauck trip. Between the ‘Gov.’ and the CDC, I think cruising from US ports is temporarily DED. We may book a cruise, but it will be ‘offshore’.
For once Sealord I agree with you. Dumb move on DeSantes part. The other caveat in his executive order (I read it all) talks about not letting vaccine info be given to third party entities though you can personally. However, if other counties require something like the Green Passport the EU is talking about or others, I'd imagine that verification would need to come from official sources not just us telling them "on yeah, trust me I'd never lie about a vaccine". Would you be able to approve release? Stupid legal mess tax payers will fund.
Sorry you only agreed with me once. I’m actually a pretty smart guy. (;-). I actually predicted 911 to the FAA safety people in a meeting at the AA Flight Academy. I told them they needed to defend the cockpit. They said, “Young man, we have not had a hijacking in the United States in ten years, and that proves we are doing it just right.”. I’ve often wondered if that man ever thought about our ‘exchange’ after 911. I flew to LaGuardia about five days after 911, and the Trade Center was still burning. And yes, I went to ground zero. The police gave me a guided tour in a golf cart. It was very limited access, but they admitted any crewmember of United or American.
Probably do agree on more. Not always about being smart. Personal experience and views count too. Being a female military member I spent a career fighting against conservative norms.
On 911, I was on the 4th floor of the Navy Annex - just west of the Pentagon next to Arlington cemetery. Was watching CNN on the admirals tv when I saw a flash of movement by the window. Then a large boom. Thought Andrews AFB had scrambled jets. When our fire alarms went off and we evacuated the building we could see the smoke coming out of the Pentagon. For the next 8 months before retirement I daily faced the reconstruction.
An acquaintance of mine was the Captain of that plane. He was also a Captain in the Naval Reserve ... and one of his Reserve jobs was in the Pentagon. He was Charles “Chic” Burlingame. He is in Arlington. I was scheduled to fly to New York on 911, but I had jury duty.
Chic was a classmate of mine at the Naval Academy. One of the officers killed in the Pentagon, LtCol Gary Smith, was a neighbor, friend, and his daughter was a classmate and good friend of my daughter. I had many meetings in the Pentagon so could have been there but I was at a meeting outside the beltway this time. We broke for coffee and as we watched TV coverage of the burning north tower, we saw the second plane crash into the south tower, and not long afterwards the third plane which I later learned had flown over our house a few minutes earlier, crashed into the Pentagon. My wife remembers hearing a plane flying lower than usual (we lived 14 mi. south of the Pentagon and under the approach to Nat'l Airport) She knew I could be in any one of those places but when I tried to call, the phone system was overwhelmed. I was eventually able to leave a brief "I'm all right" msg- the second time in our marriage I had to make a call like that*. My boss and I tried to call our office to see what we should do, but no one answered- they had all been evacuated from our (mostly "Agency") building in nearby Clarendon. It took me over 2 hours to get home, a trip that would normally take 45 min. That whole thing was too close to home.
*I was scheduled to fly one night and just waiting in the ready room when another one of our squadron aircraft crashed, killing all crewmen. I couldn't explain or provide any details, but she knew what the call meant.
Many of us were close to that fire. I had been based in Boston so I knew some of the Flight 11 crew. Our daughter was living in Greenwich Village, so the first thing we heard was the phone going off at six (California) in the morning, and she said, “Where is Mike?!”. The first reports said it was an American 737 which is what I was flying. We could make no sense of what she was telling us so we said we would call her back. Fat chance. Her cell tower was in the Trade Center. People wondered why the Emergency Broadcast System didn’t go off ... it was in the Trade Center. It is now based in the USS Intrepid Museum.
I had actually flown a 727 ****simulator**** between the two Trade Center towers around 1995. We had finished doing landing exercises at LaGuardia early, so the check airman asked what I would like to do. I said, “I want to fly between those two buildings.”. As I approached going around four hundred knots, it didn’t look like I had enough space, so I popped the nose up, rolled to ninety degrees, and pulled it through on a ‘knife edge’ pass. Made it!
Amazing how small the world can be in the "six degrees of separation" sense.
Yes, the phone systems were a mess that day. Have always been grateful that my husband, who worked up at the Security Station near National Cathedral then, and I had talked briefly after the first plane hit and knew where each was and that we were safe. I did occasionally attend meetings at the Pentagon and knew one person slightly who died.
Also a story of 2 guys in the bathroom when it hit. One was about to step into the corridor and the other realized what was happening and pulled him back just in time.
Such tragedy and loss. I live just outside NYC - Everyone knew someone in the Towers. It was a shock that has never been forgotten.
MY next door neighbor had an amazing save story.
At the time, I lived in the northern suburbs of Phila and about 10% of people in my area commuted/worked in Manhattan. It was about an hour by train (including driving to the train station). Anyway, we both had long driveways and taking out the garbage was a chore. He thought his wife had taken out the garbage the night before, but when he was leaving for work (in the WTC), he noted that she hadn't. So, he stopped to take it out. Because of that, he missed his train. That's why he's still alive. they never argued about who would take out the garbage again.
Cathy- anyone who flags your sincere, heartfelt, science recommended comment about your concern about being among mask-less people congregating inside deserves the rant of unpleasantries.
cathyandsteve,
Thank you, again, for what you do. I am so sorry that your employer does not follow protocol. I know nothing about the funerary business--having only been a consumer far too many times-- but perhaps there is a national oversight agency who might be able to help you if you choose to file a complaint. Bless you.